Quotes about eating

A collection of quotes on the topic of eating, doing, likeness, people.

John Updike quote: “Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being “somebody,” to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his overanimation. One can either see or be seen.”

Quotes about eating

“You gotta make a change. Its time for us as a people to start making some changes, lets change the way we eat, lets change the way we live, and lets change the way we treat each other. You see the old way wasn't working so its on us, to do what we gotta do to survive.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

People, Way, Change, Time

“Why not just tell people I'm an alien from Mars. Tell them I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight. They'll believe anything you say, because you're a reporter. But if I, Michael Jackson, were to say, "I'm an alien from Mars and I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight," people would say, "Oh, man, that Michael Jackson is nuts. He's cracked up. You can't believe a damn word that comes out of his mouth."”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

http://rocknrollworldmagazine.com/2015/08/82915-rock-history/

People, Dance

“I’d much rather eat pasta and drink wine then be a size zero.”

Sophia Loren (1934) Italian actress

Drink, Wine

“It's OK to eat fish
'Cos they don't have any feelings”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Something In The Way
Song lyrics, Nevermind (1991)
Variant: It's OK eat fish 'cause they don't have any feelings.

Feeling, Fish

“If you're really a mean person you're going to come back as a fly and eat poop.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

As quoted in Monk Magazine (1992-10).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print

Personality, Flying

“But I know for a fact that had I had a father, I'd have some discipline. I'd have more confidence. Your mother cannot calm you down the way a man can. Your mother can't reassure you the way a man can. My mother couldn't show me where my manhood was. You need a man to teach you how to be a man. When I was young I was quiet, withdrawn. I read a lot, wrote poetry, kept a diary. I watched TV all day. I stayed in front of the television. It was when I was in front of the TV by myself, being alone in the house by myself, having to cook dinner by myself, eat by myself. Just being by myself and looking at TV, at families and all these people out there in this pretend world. I knew I could be part of it if I pretended too, So early on I just watched and emulated … and I just thirsted for that. I thought if I could be and act like those characters, act like those people, I could have some of their joy. If I could act like I had a big family I wouldn't feel as lonely.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Posthumous attributions, Tupac: Resurrection (2003)

People, World, Family, Way

“You're a vegetable, you're a vegetable,
Still they hate you, you're a vegetable,
You're just a buffet, you're a vegetable,
They eat off you, you're a vegetable.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Thriller (1982)

Hate

“I am a cub of a tiger; don't mistake me with a carcass eating dog.”

Amar Singh Thapa (1751–1816) Supreme Commander of the Western Front of Nepal

Translated by Arjun Bhadra Khanal https://500px.com/photo/29827237/amar-singh-thapa-badakaji-by-arjun-bhadra-khanal| In the context of wealth offered by British General David Ochterlony during Anglo-Nepalese War. Quote

Dogs

“They say you are what you eat, but I don't remember eating a jaded, anxious human being.”

Коул Спроус (1992) American actor

“If someone were to harm my family or a friend or somebody I love, I would eat them. I might end up in jail for 500 years, but I would eat them.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Love, Family

“Everyone thinks I'm showing off when I talk, ridiculous when I'm silent, insolent when I answer, cunning when I have a good idea, lazy when I'm tired, selfish when I eat one bite more than I should.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Variant: If I talk, everyone thinks I'm showing off; when I'm silent they think I'm ridiculous, rude if I answer, sly if I get a good idea, lazy if I'm tired, selfish if I eat a mouthful more than I should, stupid, cowardly, crafty, etc., etc.
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Idea, Thinking, Selfishness

“Someone who eats pancakes and jam can't be so awfully dangerous. You can talk to him.”

Tove Jansson book Finn Family Moomintroll

Source: Finn Family Moomintroll

“What kind of food you eat, how much you eat, how you eat, turning it from a compulsive pattern into a conscious process: this is the essence of fasting. Sadhana”

Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Food

“By eating meat we share the responsibility of climate change, the destruction of our forests, and the poisoning of our air and water. The simple act of becoming a vegetarian will make a difference in the health of our planet.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology

Health, Water, Change

“There is no such thing as over training. You’re either under eating or under sleeping.”

Rich Piana (1970–2017) American bodybuilder and internet personality

Sleep, Training

“Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plutarch Moralia, How the Young Man Should Study Poetry

Variant translation: Base men live to eat and drink, and good men eat and drink to live.
Plutarch

Men, Drink

“I have very mixed feelings about [Napster]. On one hand, I'm concerned that the rampant downloading of my copyright-protected material over the Internet is severely eating into my album sales and having a decidedly adverse effect on my career. On the other hand, I can get all the Metallica songs I want for FREE! WOW!!!!!”

"Weird Al" Yankovic (1959) American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist

Ask Al Archives: May 2000 http://www.weirdal.com/aaarchive.htm#0500.

Feeling

“I still remember when my teacher told me that football wouldn't give me anything to eat”

Cristiano Ronaldo (1985) Portuguese association football player

“Past is dead
Future is uncertain;
Present is all you have,
So eat, drink and live merry.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Drink, Past, Future, Dead

“I won't eat anything green.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

“In loneliness, the lonely one eats himself; in a crowd, the many eat him. Now choose.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Loneliness

“I tried every diet in the book. I tried some that weren't in the book. I tried eating the book. It tasted better than most of the diets.”

Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress

Books

“People who love to eat are always the best people.”

Julia Child (1921–2004) American chef

Love, People

“I want to go to sleep and not wake up, but I don't want to die. I want to eat like a normal person eats, but I need to see my bones or I will hate myself even more and I might cut my heart out or take every pill that was ever made.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

Hate, Sleep, Heart, Personality

“In my world, everyone's a pony and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies!”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

World

“When I'm hungry, I eat. When I'm thirsty, I drink. When I feel like saying something, I say it.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Feeling, Drink

“His two eyes are different," says Lasse Hallstrom, who directed Leo in what may be his best movie, What's Eating Gilbert Grape. "The left eye is very soft and empathetic. The right eye is more analyzing. One eye oozes warmth, while the other is more penetrating. One eye is psyche, the other is intellect.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

Danny Boyle (The Face, February 2000)
About

“You have to be logical. You know? If I know that in this hotel room they have food every day, and I'm knocking on the door every day to eat, and they open the door, let me see the party, let me see them throwing salami all over, I mean, just throwing food around, but they're telling me there's no food.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Posthumous attributions, Tupac: Resurrection (2003)

Food

“I'm very proud [to be part Italian] … Although I don't eat a lot of Italian things, because I'm vegan. … I love animals more than I love most people, not kidding. But I am a firm believer in eating a full plant-based, whole food diet that can expand your life length and make you an all-round happier person. It is tricky dining out, but I just stick to what I know – veggies, fruit and salad – then when I get home I'll have something else.”

Ariana Grande (1993) American singer-songwriter

"Ariana Grande: "I love animals more than I love most people, not kidding"" https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/ariana-grande-i-love-animals-4754625, interview with the Mirror (5 December 2014)

Love, Life, People, Food

“It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up magazine. Salt-n-Peppa, Heavy D up in tha limousine. Hangin' pictures on my wall, every Saturday rap attack, Mr. Magic Marley Marl. I let my tape rock till my tape pop, smoking weed and bamboo, sippin' on Private Stock. Way back, when I had the red-and-black lumberjack, with the hat to match. Remember Rappin' Duke? Duh-ha duh-ha, you never thought that hip hop would take it this far. Now I'm in the limelight 'cause I rhyme tight. Time to get paid, blow up like the World Trade! Born sinner, the opposite of a winner. Remember when I used to eat sardines for dinner.”

The Notorious B.I.G. (1972–1997) American rapper

Song lyrics, Ready to Die (1994), "Juicy"

World, Dreams, Way, Time

“Enquire: 'Who am I?' and you will find the answer. Look at a tree: from one seed arises a huge tree; from it comes numerous seeds, each one of which in its turn grows into a tree. No two fruits are alike. Yet it is one life that throbs in every particle of the tree. So, it is the same Atman everywhere. All creation is That: There is beauty in the birds and in the animals. They too eat and drink like us, mate and multiply; but there is this difference: we can realize our true nature, the Atman. Having been born as human beings, we must not waste this opportunity. At least for a few seconds every day, we must enquire as to who we are. It is no use taking a return ticket over and over again. From birth to death, and death to birth is samsara. But really we have no birth and death. We must realize that.”

Sri Anandamoyi Ma (1896–1982) Hindu saint

Anandamayi Ma, Ananda Varta Quarterly
By herself

Life, Death, Beauty, Birth

“I excused myself as soon as I finished eating, and boy did I stuff myself on that meal. I then walked outside onto the beach. The wine had long since gone to my head, making me feel a sense of dizzy invigoration. I started walking along the shore, taking in the magnificence of the gentle, moonlit ocean. It was so… romantic. I kept walking and walking with no destination in mind. The romance of it all filled me with despair and longing. I wanted a girlfriend to experience that moment with me, but no girl wanted to be my girlfriend. The only thing I could do was imagine how heavenly it would be to have a beautiful girl by my side. It is such a shameful tragedy.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

I ended up walking for two hours, and at the end of it I was crying to myself because I felt so sad.
My Twisted World (2014), Thoughts at 19, Longing

Beauty, Feeling, Imagination, Girl

“The single highest priority need for the human is actually love and belonging. This need is actually more of a priority than basic survival needs. How do I know this? Because when the physical human is deprived of love and belonging, they often stop eating and drinking and stop meeting their basic survival needs and sometimes go so far as to take their own life. Any of you who have had a particularly painful break-up know exactly what I mean.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Love, Life, Pain, Making love

“Why, what is to live? Not to eat and drink and breathe,—but to feel the life in you down all the fibres of being, passionately and joyfully.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

Source: The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barret Barrett 1845-1846 Vol I

Life, Feeling, Drink, Passion

“Animals are my friends… and I don't eat my friends.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Animals

“Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being “somebody,” to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his overanimation. One can either see or be seen.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Source: Self-Consciousness : Memoirs (1989), Ch. 6

“In a meat-eating world, wearing leather for shoes and even clothes, the discussion of fur is childish.”

Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer

World, Shoe, Clothes

“If you can eat with mates or friends or family, I mean, it's such a brilliant thing isn't it? If you feel really rubbish and you have a nice bit of food it makes you feel good, you know?”

Jamie Oliver (1975) British chef and media personality

Family, Food, Feeling

“I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars.”

Abbie Hoffman (1936–1989) American political and social activist

Source: Revolution for the Hell of It (1968), p. 187.

War, People

“Medicine is a thankless profession. When you get paid by the rich, you feel like a flunky, by the poor like a thief. How can you take a fee from people who can’t afford to eat or go to the movies? Especially when they’re at their last gasp. It’s not easy. You let it ride. You get soft-hearted. And your ship goes down.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night

People, Feeling, Heart

“In our dreams we can have our eggs cooked exactly how we want them, but we can't eat them.”

Anna Freud (1895–1982) Austrian-British psychoanalyst & essayist

Dreams, Cooking

“You can't eat hope,' the woman said.
You can't eat it, but it sustains you,' the colonel replied.”

Gabriel García Márquez book No One Writes to the Colonel

Source: El coronel no tiene quien le escriba

Hope

“In a country where the sole employer is the state, [opposition] means death by slow starvation. The old principle: 'who does not work shall not eat,' has been replaced with a new one: 'who does not obey shall not eat.”

Leon Trotsky book The Revolution Betrayed

Source: The Revolution Betrayed (1936), Ch. 11

Death, Country

“I’ve always been opposed to slaughtering, eating, wearing carcasses.”

Christian Serratos (1990) American actress

"New Moon Star Christian Serratos Brings New Blood To PETA Campaign Against Fur" https://www.peta.org.uk/media/news-releases/new-moon-star-christian-serratos-brings-new-blood-to-peta-campaign-against-fur/, interview with PETA (10 November 2009).

“Esaias says: “The wolf also shall feed with the lamb, and the leopard shall take his rest with the kid; the calf also, and the bull, and the lion shall eat together; and a little boy shall lead them. …” I am quite aware that some persons endeavour to refer these words to the case of savage men, both of different nations and various habits, who come to believe, and when they have believed, act in harmony with the righteous. But although this is [true] now with regard to some men coming from various nations to the harmony of the faith, nevertheless in the resurrection of the just [the words shall also apply] to those animals mentioned. For God is rich in all things. And it is right that when the creation is restored, all the animals should … revert to the food originally given by God … that is, the productions of the earth.”

Irenaeus (130–202) Bishop and saint

Book 5, Chapter 33, Section 4. Translated by Philip Schaff et al. (full text at Wikisource).
Against Heresies

Men, God, Faith, Food

“In the name of Indian national life, in the name of religion, I appeal to all in each of the two countries who hold position…let them begin each in their own community to work untiringly towards this end: boldly to repudiate feelings of hatred and intolerance, actively to condemn and suppress acts of violence and aggression, earnestly to strive to exorcise suspicions…I appeal in the name of national life because communal tension is eating into it as a canker…I appeal in the name of religion because I can appeal to nothing nobler, and because religion is the language of the soul, and it is a change of soul that India needs today.”

Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax (1881–1959) British politician

Speech as Viceroy of India (1926), quoted in Birkenhead, Halifax (Hamish Hamilton, 1965), pp. 223-234
Viceroy of India

Life, Religion, Feeling, Soul

“Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine,
Yet let's be merry: we'll have tea and toast;
Custards for supper, and an endless host
Of syllabubs and jellies and mince-pies,
And other such ladylike luxuries.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Letter to Maria Gisborne (1820), l. 302

Drink, Wine, Tea

“I eat only white foods: eggs, sugar, grated bones, the fat of dead animals; veal, salt, coconut, chicken cooked in white water; fruit mold, rice, turnips; camphorated sausage, dough, cheese (white), cotton salad, and certain fish (skinless).”

Erik Satie (1866–1925) French composer and pianist

Quoted by Rollo H. Myers (1968). Erik Satie, p.135. New York: Dover.
See also Socrate for the context of this quote.
General quotes

Food, Fish, Water, Animals

“No man who aims at making his life an harmonious whole, pure, complete, and harmless to others, can endure to gratify an appetite at the cost of the daily suffering and bloodshed of his inferiors in degree, and of the moral degradation of his own kind. I know not which strikes me most forcibly in the ethics of this question the injustice, the cruelty, or the nastiness of flesh-eating. The injustice is to the butchers, the cruelty is to the animals, the nastiness concerns the consumer. With regard to this last in particular, I greatly wonder what persons of refinement—aye, even of decency—do not feel insulted on being offered, as a matter of course, portions of corpses as food! Such comestibles might possibly be tolerated during sieges, or times of other privation of proper viands in exceptional circumstances, but in the midst of a civilised community able to command a profusion of sound and delicious foods, it ought to be deemed an affront to set dead flesh before a guest.”

Anna Kingsford (1846–1888) English physician, activist and feminist

Addresses and Essays on Vegetarianism (1912); quoted in Awe for the Tiger, Love for the Lamb by Rod Preece (Routledge, 2002), p. 344 https://books.google.it/books?id=Mf6TAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA344.

Life, Food, Feeling, Communication

“For the history of the centuries that have passed since the birth of Christ nowhere reveals conditions like those of the present. There has never been such building and planting in the world. There has never been such gluttonous and varied eating and drinking as now. Wearing apparel has reached its limit in costliness. Who has ever heard of such commerce as now encircles the earth? There have arisen all kinds of art and sculpture, embroidery and engraving, the like of which has not been seen during the whole Christian era. In addition men are so delving into the mysteries of things that today a boy of twenty knows more than twenty doctors formerly knew.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent, Luke 21:25-36 (1522) http://www.trinitylutheranms.org/MartinLuther/MLSermons/mlserms_original.html, as translated in The Precious and Sacred Writings of Martin Luther (1905) edited by John Nicholas Lenker

Men, World, Art, History

“I enjoy challenging a person's ideas. No one loves a good and passionately fought argument more than I do. This isn't about being tough-minded and straightforward. That's the job. But so is sensing when to hug and when to kick. Of course, arrogant people who refuse to learn from their mistakes have to go. If we're managing good people who are clearly eating themselves up over an error, our job is to help them through it. That doesn't mean you have to take it easy on your top performers.”

Jack Welch (1935) American executive: General Electric CEO

Source: Jack: Straight from the Gut (2001), Ch. 3.

Love, People, Error, Idea

“I knew I wanted to wrestle when I was little kid. It took hold in me, captured my imagination. … I’m bigger now than I was eating meat. My lifts in the gym are better. I’m in better shape. … I’m healthier than everybody else. All the omega-3s make me smarter. … I’m pretty much friendly and compassionate to everybody. But not to people in the ring.”

Daniel Bryan (1981) American professional wrestler

"Meatless Monday: WWE Superstar Daniel Bryan Stomps On Meat" by Ellen Kanner, HuffPost (16 April 2012) https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-kanner/meatless-monday-wwe-super_b_1424303.html.

People, Imagination

“(on his twin sister) "Join us next week… where Zoe will be eating fruit off my naked body.."”

Zayn Malik (1993) British singer

Sister

“Eat your chocolates, little girl,
Eat your chocolates!
Believe me, there's no metaphysics on earth like chocolates,
And all religions put together teach no more than the candy shop.
Eat, dirty little girl, eat!
If only I could eat chocolates with the same truth as you!
But I think and, removing the silver paper that's tinfoil,
I throw it all on the ground, as I've thrown out life.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Come chocolates, pequena;
Come chocolates!
Olha que não há mais metafísica no mundo senão chocolates.
Olha que as religiões todas não ensinam mais que a confeitaria.
Come, pequena suja, come!
Pudesse eu comer chocolates com a mesma verdade com que comes!
Mas eu penso e, ao tirar o papel de prata, que é de folhas de estanho,
Deito tudo para o chão, como tenho deitado a vida.
Tabacaria (1928), trans. Richard Zenith

Life, Truth, Religion, Girl

“You gotta eat big to get big.”

Rich Piana (1970–2017) American bodybuilder and internet personality

“Roughly speaking, the more one pays for food, the more sweat and spittle one is obliged to eat with it. … Dirtiness is inherent in hotels and restaurants, because sound food is sacrificed to punctuality and smartness… The only food at the Hotel X which was ever prepared cleanly was the staff's.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 14

Food

“It was queer. All over England young men were eating their hearts out for lack of jobs, and here was he, Gordon, to whom the very word 'job' was faintly nauseous, having jobs thrust unwanted upon him. It was an example of the fact that you can get anything in this world if you genuinely don't want it.”

George Orwell book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 3

Men, World, Heart

“Part of how we come to take command of our world, to take command of our environment, to make these tools by which we're able to do this, is we ask ourselves questions about it the whole time. So this man starts to ask himself questions. "This world," he says, "so who made it?" Now, of course he thinks that, because he makes things himself. So he's looking for someone who would have made this world. He says, "Well, so who would have made this world? Well, it must be something a little like me. Obviously much much bigger. And necessarily invisible. But he would have made it. Now why did he make it?" Now we always ask ourselves "why?" because we look for intention around us; because we always intend– we do something with intention. We boil an egg in order to eat it. So we look at the rocks, and we look at the trees, and we wonder what intention is here even though it doesn't have intention.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Parrots, the Universe and Everything (2001)

World, Question, Thinking, Tree

“He [Socrates] would say that the rest of the world lived to eat, while he himself ate to live.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Socrates II: xxiv http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=D.+L.+2.5.24&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0258#note-link18. Original Greek: ἔλεγέ τε τοὺς μὲν ἄλλους ἀνθρώπους ζῆν ἵν᾽ ἐσθίοιεν: αὐτὸς δὲ ἐσθίειν ἵνα ζῴη. Diogenes Laertius

World

“I go back and forth between [being a vegan and not being a vegan]. I try lots of different things. I really feel that you need to kind of listen to your body and what your body is telling you to eat. So I was a vegan for about two years. … Well, everything with being vegan and vegetarian is a really big commitment. You have to do what you feel is best and what you believe in and what your body is telling you that it needs. I really think everyone should do what’s best for them, and what’s best for me may not be best for someone else. But like I said, you just have to do what makes you feel good.”

Lea Michele (1986) actress, singer

“Lea Michele: From Gleek to Do-Gooder,” interview with Shape (July 2012) http://www.shape.com/celebrities/interviews/lea-michele-gleek-do-gooder.

Feeling, Thinking

“You cannot eat your cake and have it too, unless you think your money is immortal. The fool too late, his substance eaten up, reckons the cost. (translator Thornton)”
Non tibi illud apparere, si sumas, potest, nisi tu immortale rere esse argentum tibi. Sero atque stulte, prius quod cautum oportuit, postquam comedit rem, post rationem putat.

Plautus Trinummus

Trinummus, Act II, scene 4, lines 12
Trinummus (The Three Coins)

“Make yourselves sheep, and the wolves will eat you.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Letter to Thomas Cushing (1773) http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/franklin-the-works-of-benjamin-franklin-vol-vi-letters-and-misc-writings-1772-1775#lf1438-06_head_007. Context: But our great security lies, I think, in our growing strength, both in numbers and wealth; … unless, by a neglect of military discipline, we should lose all martial spirit …; for there is much truth in the Italian saying, Make yourselves sheep, and the wolves will eat you.

“I act like shit don't faze me
Inside it drives me crazy
My insecurities could eat me alive
But then I see my baby
Suddenly I'm not crazy
It all makes sense when I look into her eyes”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Hailie's Song"
2000s, The Eminem Show (2002)

Sense, Baby

“Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
and I eat men like air.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

"Lady Lazarus"
Ariel (1965)
Variant: p>Herr God, Herr Lucifer,
Beware.
Beware.Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.</p
Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition

Men

“To sit back hoping that someday, someway, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last - but eat you he will.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Hope

“In the increasingly convincing darkness
The words become palpable, like a fruit
That is too beautiful to eat.”

John Ashbery (1927–2017) poet from the United States

Beauty

“You've got to have something to eat, and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave.”

Billie Holiday (1915–1959) American jazz singer and songwriter

Love, Life

“Think thoughts that make you happy. Do things that make you feel good. Be with people who make you feel good. Eat things that make your body feel good. Go at a pace that makes you feel good.”

Louise L. Hay book You Can Heal Your Life

Source: You Can Heal Your Life

Happiness, People, Feeling, Thinking

“Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water, and when you're tired, go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand.”

Bruce Lee book Tao of Jeet Kune Do

Variant: In Buddhism, there is no place for using effort. Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water and when you're tired go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand.
Source: Tao of Jeet Kune Do

Lie, Food, Understanding, Water

“Don’t crap where you eat”

Barry Lyga (1971) American writer

Source: I Hunt Killers

“Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combatting the forces of evil… prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon…”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

alt.fan.pratchett (30 May 1998) http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.pratchett/msg/31c9fbae84e0fc8c Usenet

Death, Way, Evil

“An average human looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting, moves without physical awareness, inhales without awareness of odour or fragrance, and talks without thinking.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Feeling, Thinking

“!"
I wasn't sure where the Latin came from. I think it meant 'Eat my pants!”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Thinking

“I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly that will put me in trust: to love him that is honest; to converse with him that is wise, and says little; to fear judgment; to fight when I cannot choose; and to eat no fish.”

William Shakespeare King Lear

Source: King Lear

Love, Fear, Fish, Fight

“Since Stark had come back from the Otherworld, he'd been too weak and out of it to do much more than eat, sleep, and play computer games with Seoras, which was actually a super weird sight, it was like high school meets Braveheart meets Call of Duty.”

P. C. Cast book Awakened

Source: Awakened

School, Game, Sleep

“Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One must eat muffins quite calmly, it is the only way to eat them.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Algernon, Act II
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

Way

“I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)
Context: I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American. Why, if birth made you American, you wouldn't need any legislation; you wouldn't need any amendments to the Constitution; you wouldn't be faced with civil-rights filibustering in Washington, D. C., right now.